


right at the intersection, right at the right time

by eneiryu



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:47:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27674228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eneiryu/pseuds/eneiryu
Summary: “If you have any idea what’s good for you, you will leave this alone,” the Sheriff warns him, but Theo’sTheo.He doesn’t leave it alone.
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken
Comments: 70
Kudos: 332





	right at the intersection, right at the right time

**Author's Note:**

> The rating is for content, folks: for those that missed the tag, this fic does contain implied/referenced domestic violence. None of it happens on-screen, but it's there. Take care of yourself, folks.
> 
> Written because the theory was presented to me and it unfortunately made too much sense. This is my own personal form of exorcism.
> 
> My thanks to [snaeken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snaeken) for the beta read.

“When,” Theo huffs, the muscles of his back and shoulders _straining_ even though he’s a supernatural creature with _supernatural strength,_ “are you going to _give up,_ and just replace this fucking thing?”

The middle drawer of the big metal lateral filing cabinet finally gives with a wounded shriek, and proceeds to immediately _jam_ itself into Theo’s solar plexus, since he’d still been idiotically standing in front of it. He wheezes a little as he stumbles back a few steps, and from his new angle he can see the warped corner of the back panel, which is _definitely_ the culprit for why the Sheriff constantly requires Theo’s help to open the goddamn thing.

Unbothered by either Theo’s language or his subsequent—and self-inflicted—injury, the Sheriff just claps a hand down on Theo’s shoulder and cheerfully answers, “As soon as the County Council allocates me the budget to,” as he steps around Theo to go slot the file in his hands into its place. Theo glares half-heartedly after him, still hunched over and winded. 

But then his head and whole _body_ snap upright, because he hears the dispatch radio on Strauss’ desk crackle and burr. “Ten-sixteen at 7473 Humboldt Road. Repeat, ten-sixteen at 7473 Humboldt Road. All available units—”

Theo’s eyes narrow as he stares, _dread_ curling in his gut because: “That’s _Liam’s_ address,” he breathes, and then he whips around to stare at the Sheriff. “And a ten-sixteen is—!”

The Sheriff is already on the move. “If you have _any_ idea what’s good for you,” he warns, his jacket already retrieved and half-shrugged on, “you will leave this alone.” He makes some kind of hand-signal to Strauss behind the desk, and then barks, “Parrish!” The two of them are out the doors and gone within seconds.

Theo spends a few seconds just standing stupidly in the middle of the station, his ears fixed on the sounds of the Sheriff’s cruiser as it starts up, and then he works his jaw, considering. 

He hesitates only a second longer, and then he swipes his car keys off his desk.

\---

But whatever had happened, it’s over by the time he gets there.

That’s probably due to the fact that—the Sheriff’s warning ringing in his mind—Theo had deliberately parked his truck a few blocks over, and then half-jogged to Liam’s, as fast as he dared. He ends up cutting through the backyards of several of the houses across the street, and hugs the side of one of them—the windows above dark, and the house silent—as he makes his way forward, and then stops at the very edge of the wall. He peers out past it, his eyes searching.

There’s an entire _wall_ of cruisers set in a semi-circle around the Dunbar-Geyer house. An ambulance sits in the middle of them. Their sirens aren’t on but their _lights_ are, the revolving red and blue and white patterns _searing_ in their brightness against the dark of the sky. Theo has to blink neon streaks out of his eyes, and that’s the main reason it takes him a few seconds to spot the struggling, handcuffed figure being dragged away from the house by two uniformed deputies. 

Theo _stares._

And then his attention jerks to the Geyer-Dunbar front door, because he can hear the Sheriff talking in a quick, low voice with—with Jenna Geyer, stood in the doorway with David Geyer’s arm around her shoulders, and her face wet with tears. Theo feels his heart drop into his goddamn _shoes._

And then it reverses direction and slams itself _right_ up into his throat, because his eyes drop, and he spots Liam. 

He’s sitting on the top step of the porch holding an ice-pack to his bottom lip, a paramedic squatted down in front of him. The presence of the latter explains the former, Liam’s werewolf healing be damned, though it does _not_ explain why the hell someone would think that Liam would need an ice-pack _in the first place_. With his eyes flared—and they _do_ flare, without Theo even having to consciously think about it—Theo can see the bright red streaks of blood around Liam’s mouth. 

_What the hell happened?_ Theo wonders. His gaze flicks back to the struggling figure—the struggling _man_ —that the two deputies are trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to wrestle into the back of one of the cruisers. He’s spitting vitriol and swearing, and every now and then he yells, “You can’t—! Get _off_ of me. Jenna, Jenna, tell them to—! _Liam!_ ”

The Sheriff bites off a harsh sound that Theo only hears because his ears had shifted, too, and he’s _entirely_ focused on what’s happening. The Sheriff turns to snap, “Parrish!” and Parrish immediately hurries over to the two deputies, and finishes shoving the man into the back of the cruiser. 

He’s not particularly gentle about it.

“I’m so sorry, Jenna,” the Sheriff starts murmuring, even while Parrish is doing so. “Plumas County Sheriff’s Department is supposed to _call_ when—” He cuts off. _When what?_ Theo wonders, frustrated, but the Sheriff just switches tracks. “ _Believe_ me, Sheriff Kaustinen is going to be hearing from me, for whatever that’s worth to you.”

Jenna laughs, though it’s choked-sounding. “I might pay to see that,” she jokes, though even as she’s doing it, she’s turning a little more completely into her husband’s chest. David’s arms tighten around her, his expression pinched.

“He’s going straight to lock up,” the Sheriff assures her. Assures them _all,_ really, David and Liam too. He says, “Even so I’m leaving two deputies here to watch the house.”

Jenna nods, and the Sheriff grimaces and glances down at Liam.

“You’ve got to go to the hospital, get checked out.”

 _What?_ Theo thinks. “What?” Liam blurts out, clearly baffled. He flicks his eyes up to his mom and stepfather, who look just as confused. “But—”

“It’s protocol,” the Sheriff interrupts gently. He looks back up at Jenna and David. “I’ll call Melissa,” he offers, and only the four of them—and well, Parrish and Theo, though none of them know Theo is there—can likely detect the extra weight he puts on his words. “Make sure he sees a friendly face.”

“I’m going with him,” Jenna immediately declares, echoed instantly by David. They retreat briefly inside to grab jackets, keys. Shoes, which none of them had been wearing, Theo realizes with a jolt.

A still-baffled Liam lets himself be guided to his feet by the paramedic, the ice-pack falling away from his clearly completely _fine_ lip, though the corner of his mouth is still red-streaked. He accepts his shoes from his mom. He leans against the Sheriff while he tugs them on, hopping first on one foot and then the other.

He suddenly straightens, his nostrils flaring and his head whipping around.

 _Shit!,_ Theo thinks, swearing, and flattens himself back against the side of the house he’s standing next to. In his distraction he’d missed the goddamn _breeze_ changing direction, like a complete amateur. 

But he still hears it when the Sheriff gently prompts, “Alright, let’s go,” and the entire makeshift caravan of them moves out, back towards the cruisers and the single waiting ambulance. Theo stays pressed up against the wall, hidden in the shadows of the house, for a long few minutes even after they all leave, Liam’s neighborhood once more quiet and _dark_ in the absence of the spinning cruiser lights.

Theo tips his head back against the side of the house he’s pressed up against, and stares up at the stars above. _If you have any idea what’s good for you, you will leave this alone,_ the Sheriff had warned.

 _Go home,_ Theo tries telling himself. _Wait for Liam to call, or text, and tell you what happened._

Theo pushes off of the side of the house.

\---

But he doesn’t go home.

Instead he spends an agonizing fifteen, thirty, _forty-five_ minutes sitting in his dark truck cab waiting for Liam to reach out to him, to say, _hey, something happened. Can you come to the hospital?_ or some variation thereof. 

But Liam _doesn’t,_ and the gnawing pit of worry in Theo’s gut—and, he can admit, the burning _curiosity_ in his brain—winds up being stronger than the reasonable voice in his head urging him to remember that he’d seen for himself that Liam was fine. Urging him to be _patient;_ to let Liam come to him, rather than Theo forcing his way into something that he— _if you have any idea what’s good for you, you will leave this alone_ —probably has no right to. 

Finally he can’t take it anymore. He starts his truck. He puts his foot down on the gas.

He takes a left instead of a right on Palmera, pointing his truck towards the hospital rather than home.

Beacon Hills Memorial is as much a hive of activity as it ever is, and it’s easy for Theo to slip his way through the rushing doctors and harried nurses and frantic patients, his nose fixed on Liam’s scent. He’s on the fourth floor, it turns out, tucked into one of the corner rooms, and Theo hesitates on the opposite side of the stairwell doorway and then settles in instead of pushing through, his hearing automatically stretching out.

“Look, I’m fine. I’m _fine,_ ” Liam is insisting, layered over the top of the sounds of someone—Melissa McCall, Theo realizes—shifting around near him. “What I _really_ want to know, is what’s going to happen to—”

Someone slams through the stairwell doorway one floor below, the crash of it echoing through the entire stairwell and causing Theo to grimace and wince, his concentration broken. He huffs out a frustrated sound and refocuses.

“—the station tonight, it’d be better,” the Sheriff is now explaining apologetically. “If we can get the paperwork prepared, the DA can request an emergency hearing tomorrow morning with the on-call judge. That way—”

Theo has to step quickly back as a doctor yanks open the stairwell door, and Theo nearly falls through it, he’d been so focused. He hops a little to regain his balance—ignoring the doctor giving him a strange look—and then, since he’s already _in_ the hallway, he decides to stay there. There’s a little waiting area across from the stairwell, half-filled with other people in various stages of exhausted anticipation. They look up at him as he takes a seat nearest the hallway, and he gives them as sympathetic a smile as he can dredge up. They do the same, and then go back to staring at the floor or their hands or their phones, depending.

Theo goes back to listening.

“Are you _sure?_ ” Jenna is double-checking, her voice more than a little strained. “Absolutely sure, Liam, because it’s _fine,_ I can wait until tomorrow to file—”

“No,” Liam interrupts firmly, “you _can’t._ You heard the Sheriff. If you don’t get the paperwork in tonight, then it’ll be another twenty-four hours before a hearing can happen. _Go._ ”

“But—” Jenna protests.

“I’ll call Mason,” Liam bargains. “He can come pick me up, and then I’m sure he’ll be stuck to me like a goddamn _lamprey_ afterwards, so. So I’ll be _fine,_ okay.” 

His voice breaks a little on that _fine._ Theo feels something in his chest twist _hard._

“Okay,” Jenna surrenders. “Okay, alright. Call Mason. David—”

“Right behind you,” David answers. 

There’s a bit more conversation, the Sheriff and Jenna and David and Melissa all talking. Theo starts to relax a bit, and then his eyes drift to the elevator sitting _in full view of the waiting area,_ and he panics. He throws himself quickly to his feet and has _just_ managed to duck into an empty patient room when the four of them exit Liam’s room down the hallway, and start towards the elevator. He stays pressed up against the wall and listening, his heart pounding, until he hears the elevator doors slide shut behind them. Only then does he let himself slump with a heavy sigh.

 _Why the hell are you even hiding?,_ some incredulous part of himself wonders. _Just go tell him that you’re here._ The Sheriff’s warning aside—or maybe the Sheriff’s warning _top of mind_ —he could explain himself. Being at the station when the call came in. Being _worried._ Waiting for Liam’s call and not getting it. 

Theo grimaces, and scrapes his tongue along his top teeth. He pulls out his phone and checks it again, but Liam _still_ hasn’t tried to reach out to him.

And Liam had told his mom he’d call _Mason,_ not Theo. 

_Go_ home, Theo orders himself again, more firmly this time. If Liam didn’t want to tell him, then Liam didn’t want to tell him, and Theo would have to live with that.

Theo pushes off of the wall, and slips out of the room. 

But it’s as he’s making his way back out to the parking lot that he passes by the nurse’s station, and he sees the pile of patient files sitting on the counter, waiting to be coded. He hesitates. _No,_ he orders himself. _No, absolutely not, do not—_

He moves.

“Sorry!” He gasps seconds later as he collides not-so-accidentally with a rushing nurse, the two of them stumbling and then bouncing apart from the force. Theo ends up hitting the counter, his elbow catching the stack of files and knocking them in a flurry of flying paperwork to the ground. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry!”

He kneels down at the same time as the nurse to start helping pull the files back together, even as the nurse is assuring him, “No, no. It’s fine, I should have been watching where I was going. Are _you_ okay?”

“Fine,” Theo promises, letting his voice go a little breathless. “Absolutely fine. Embarrassed,” he adds, laughing a little and scratching the back of his neck with one hand as he stands, and then offers the relatively neat stack of files back to the nurse with his other arm. He lets his cheeks flush a little. “I swear I’m not usually this clumsy.”

The nurse laughs in turn, and accepts the files. “Happens to the best of us,” he demurs, and hands off the stack to the grinning woman behind the desk, who is _clearly_ planning on ragging on him for the rest of time—or at least the rest of the _night_ —for the collision. Theo grins back, and mutters a few more apologies as he backs up, and then turns around.

But he doesn’t head for his truck. Instead he heads back down the hallway, deeper into the hospital, until he can find another empty patient room, and duck inside it. He leaves the lights off as he sets the file in his hands—the one that he _conveniently_ hadn’t handed back—atop the room’s chest of drawers, and flares his eyes so that he can actually _see_ the damn thing in the dark.

 _Liam Dunbar,_ a sticker folded over the edge of the file proclaims. Theo gives absent thanks that Beacon Hills Memorial had given up and adopted the belt-and-suspenders approach to patient records—keeping them both digitally _and_ on paper—given how often either their computers and/or filing cabinets were destroyed by supernatural calamity. _Or maybe you shouldn’t be grateful,_ that same irritating voice in his head points out: maybe if he’d had to go through the effort to break into the hospital’s electronic files instead of stealing the paper version, he’d be smart enough to realize how stupid an idea this is.

He flips open the file.

Melissa McCall’s handwriting is the first he sees. _Facial contusion w/minor swelling, right side of jaw._ That made sense: Liam had been holding the ice pack to the right side of his face. _No sign of fracture._

That gives Theo pause. Of course there wouldn’t be a fracture—Liam is a goddamn _werewolf_ —but the fact that Melissa felt the need to _document_ it in the official file…

 _That asshole hit Liam,_ Theo realizes. If Melissa had been worried about a possible fracture—or at least needed to _seem_ like she had been worried about a possible fracture—then the handcuffed man that the two deputies had been dragging away had hit him.

Theo hesitates, his hand hovering over the file. _Close it,_ he orders himself. _Close it right now._

He flips to the next page.

It’s dated _years_ ago, and describes a possible ankle fracture. _When he was turned,_ Theo realizes; the lacrosse accident with Scott and Stiles. He flips to the next page.

A lacrosse injury; several splinted fingers. A bike accident and a potential concussion. Several cracked ribs, no explanation. 

Theo frowns.

A few months before the ribs it’s a sprained wrist. A few months before that it’s a cracked collarbone. Theo’s mouth is starting to taste a little metallic. 

A broken finger. A sprained ankle. All of the entries seem to happen a few months after each other, give or take. Another handful of bruised ribs, though not cracked.

 _This can’t be right,_ he thinks, even as the bottom is dropping out of his stomach. In a fit of truly _absurd_ stubbornness, he flips back to the beginning of the file, and rechecks the name typed onto the sticker folded over the edge. But it still says _Liam Dunbar,_ because of _course_ it does. 

Theo spends a few seconds just staring in uncomprehending, all-consuming _horror_ down at the open file _,_ and then he goes to start flipping through it again. Just to _double-check._ Just to make sure he’d _read everything right,_ because he doesn’t understand how—

And then he nearly jumps _right_ out of his goddamn skin when a hand slams down on top of the file, and slides it away from him. Theo freezes and then looks, wide-eyed, at Liam. He can practically _feel_ all the color drain out of his face.

“Liam,” he breathes.

The expression on Liam’s face is brutally tight. His voice is _glacially_ calm when he speaks, which is how Theo _really_ knows he’s screwed. “You know,” Liam says, “how there are things in your past that you don’t like to talk about?”

“...yeah,” Theo agrees hesitantly, after a long few seconds have crawled themselves by.

Liam finishes sliding the file— _his_ file, because there’s no mistaking that fact now—off the cabinet, and snaps it closed. He looks levelly back at Theo.

“Consider us even,” he says, and then he turns and leaves.

Theo doesn’t move, just stares after him, for half a minute, a minute, nearly two. 

“Shit,” he whispers.

\--- 

Several days later, the Sheriff comes into the evidence room, flips on the light, and proceeds to nearly trip over Theo sitting directly in the middle of the floor.

“Jesus, Theo!” The Sheriff yelps, hopping a little sideways to avoid the collision.

Theo’s still half-blinded by the sudden flood of light in the room, so he can’t do much more than grimace vaguely in the Sheriff’s direction. He squints his eyes shut and then rubs at them a little, all while grouching, “I thought you were a trained _law enforcement professional._ Shouldn’t your situational awareness be better than this?”

His vision has cleared enough that he can look up in time to spot the Sheriff’s incredulous expression. “You were sitting in here _in the dark,_ ” the Sheriff points out severely. “ _And,_ ” he adds, “it’s _six in the goddamn morning._ What are you even _doing_ here?”

“I wasn’t _always_ in the dark,” Theo argues, more than a little petulant as he shifts so that he’s resting his elbows on his bent knees. “I was sitting here _in the light_ until Nyugen came in to get something, and then turned out the lights on his way out.”

In Nyugen’s defense, he hadn’t _known_ Theo was in the evidence room at all: Theo had been sequestered in a different corner, and he hadn’t bothered to call out when Nyugen had hit the lights on his way through the door. Instead he’d just flared his eyes, and kept working. 

The Sheriff doesn’t seem satisfied with this explanation. He repeats, more calmly: “It’s six in the morning. What are you doing here?”

Theo thinks about trying to avoid answering again, and then sighs, and rakes a tired hand back through his hair. He mutters, “I haven’t really been able to sleep.”

He glances back up at the Sheriff, whose benignly pinched expression smooths out as he apparently realizes what Theo means. He sighs, heavily, and then stretches out a foot to hook a nearby chair. He frowns when he realizes that Theo had been using it for file storage—the stack wobbles alarmingly as the chair screeches across the floor—and then reaches down to retrieve the files, and set them on the floor. He drops into the chair, and stretches out his legs with a tired exhale, and squints at Theo.

He says, “He’s still not talking to you.” 

It’s not a question.

“No,” Theo confirms anyway after a few seconds of stubborn hesitation. Grimacing and wanting a distraction—wanting to go _back_ to the distraction he’d chosen—he pointedly ignores the Sheriff’s continued attention and reaches for the set of files the Sheriff had moved. He leans back over the open drawer of the filing cabinet he’d been sitting in front of, and starts slotting the files carefully into place, one by one.

The Sheriff doesn’t say anything for a while, and then he quietly points out, “I did tell you not to pull on that thread.”

It’s not a rebuke, or an _I told you so._ It’s the Sheriff genuinely _asking_ why Theo didn’t listen. 

And Theo doesn’t have a good answer—or not one he’s willing to _give_ , anyway—and so he just mutters, “Yeah,” as he bends over the filing cabinet and mentally recites the alphabet before sliding _Ellis, J - Burglary_ in between _Elling, W - Car-jacking_ and _Elton, B -_ _Homicide,_ “except that’s like a notarized invitation for me _to_ pull a thread.”

The Sheriff cocks his head. Theo can see it out of the corner of his eye. He asks, “Do you ever think that that might be your problem?”

Theo huffs and gives up and covers his face with his hands. Because he’s still holding several files he ends up clocking himself in the face with them, but: “That,” he assures the Sheriff from behind them, “does not even crack the top _ten_ of my problems.”

The Sheriff laughs quietly—seemingly a little helplessly—and then claps his hands down on his knees. He pushes himself to his feet, and wanders over until he’s standing over Theo. He tips his head towards the door to the evidence room. “Go find him,” he orders softly. “Apologize.”

Theo slumps further down in his already near-turtled-up position, his forearms folding over his bent knees and his face—still covered by files—dropping on top of them. “I’ve _tried,_ ” Theo tells him, his voice muffled by the files and his bracing arms. “He won’t answer any of my calls or texts, and when I try to find him, he’s nowhere to be found.”

The Sheriff’s silence is confused. “You have a supernatural sense of smell.”

“Which he _knows,_ ” Theo counters, his frustration leaking into his voice. “He knows how to cover his scent when he wants to.”

 _He just doesn’t usually want to,_ Theo thinks, the thought full of more than a little despair. 

_Christ,_ had he fucked up.

The Sheriff sighs, and reaches down to get ahold of one of Theo’s arms. He tugs pointedly until Theo gives in and climbs reluctantly to his feet, and then he braces a foot against the open drawer, clearly about to close it. He stops, though, and frowns at something he sees when he looks down at it, and then he gives up and leaves it half-open. He turns back to Theo.

“Go try to find him _again,_ ” he insists doggedly. “If for no other reason,” he adds dryly, and reaches down to pull a file out of the drawer seemingly at random, and wave it in Theo’s face, “then that you are clearly useless to _me_ right now.”

Theo squints at the file in the Sheriff’s hand, and then flushes. Yeah, Kastner clearly starts with a _K_ and not a _C,_ but in Theo’s defense: _fuck_ the English language and its billion different ways to pronounce the same sound in various contexts. He scowls.

But only for a second, and then it melts off his face. He looks hesitantly back up at the Sheriff. “I _really_ don’t think he wants to talk to me,” he stresses.

“He probably doesn’t,” the Sheriff agrees. “But let him be the one to tell you that to your face.” He puts both hands on Theo’s shoulders, and physically turns him around. He gives him a pointed little shove towards the door. “ _Go._ ”

Theo glances back at him. The Sheriff gives him a tiny, but firm, little nod.

Theo goes.

\---

But Liam isn’t at the Geyer-Dunbar house when Theo gets there.

Jenna is, though.

“Wow,” she observes, hefting the paper bag of groceries she’d just finished taking out of her car’s trunk a little further up onto her hip. “You must _really_ be out of ideas if you’re looking for him here.”

Theo hesitates, and then he finishes pushing the driver’s door of his truck back shut. “I am really that out of ideas,” he agrees quietly; a little shamefacedly. He’s finding it hard to look directly at Jenna; his eyes keep trying to lock onto places over either of her shoulders. One of his eyes squints partially shut in a preemptive wince.

Jenna studies him for a few seconds longer, and then she sighs. “C’mon,” she orders him, and starts heading for the house.

Theo doesn’t follow after her right away. There’s a squirming uncomfortable thing in his gut and it squirms _harder_ when he imagines himself standing in the middle of the Geyer-Dunbar kitchen under the weight of Jenna’s knowing stare. But then _Theo_ sighs. _Christ,_ this is how he’d ended up in this position in the first place. _Stop being a coward,_ he orders himself. 

He jogs a little to catch up with her. 

He takes the bag of groceries when they reach the door into the house from the garage, and stands and waits as Jenna hip-checks the door open, and then smacks a hand against the button that controls the garage. The garage door starts to rumble closed as Theo trails her into the house. 

He sets the bag of groceries down on the island, and then hesitates. He _knows_ where everything goes, but he’s—genuinely unsure of his welcome right at this moment. It’s even-odds whether Jenna wants to be reminded that he _knows_ this house, at this point; knows that the boxes of dried pasta go in the cabinet to the right of the oven, and the apples in the bowl by the sliding glass door into the backyard, and the protein bars that Liam tends to _inhale_ in the afternoons go wherever, because Liam will root them out like an oddly-specific truffle pig no matter where they get placed. 

And then Jenna moots the whole silent debate by gently steering him away, and starting to put the groceries away herself. It feels like a rebuke even though he’s probably reading too much into it, and he smothers a wince as he goes to round the island. He considers sitting at one of the island’s bar chairs, and then decides against it; he’s feeling too jittery.

He’s feeling like Liam _acts,_ half the time. He narrowly resists dropping his head into his hands in despair.

He jumps and looks up when Jenna sets a can of sparkling water in front of him with a sharp _clank_. Her eyes when he accidentally meets them are a little guarded, but the curve of her lips is wry. Theo reaches forward after a second and retrieves the can, and then cracks it open and takes a conciliatory sip.

It’s not cold. She must have just pulled it out of the box she’d bought with her other groceries. Theo winces. The Geyer-Dunbar family is full of sparkling water _fiends_. If they’d run out it’d been because they were too distracted—too preoccupied with something else—to keep up their usual grocery shopping routines. Theo sets his can back down. He looks back up at Jenna from under a partially-ducked brow.

“You know what I really don’t get,” Jenna tells him as she continues to put the groceries away; her tone is conversational but there’s a stony undercurrent to it that says she’s not exactly pleased with him, either, “is why you went about doing what you did in the way that you did it.” She stops, and plants her hands on the counter as she looks shrewdly at him. “ _Spying_ on him? _Stealing,_ ” she says, and now her voice gets _hard,_ “his medical file?”

If Theo’s shoulders hunch any further he’s going to be horizontal. He grimaces. Jenna cocks her head.

She presses, “Why?”

Theo opens his mouth, considers for a few seconds, and then shuts it again. He glances up at her, and then winces and looks almost immediately away. He says, “It’s the only way I know how to help,” softly. Her brow furrows. He winces again. “Knowing things,” he tries to explain. “Doing something _with_ what I know. But I can’t _do_ that if—” _he won’t tell me,_ he thinks, but doesn’t say.

He trails off. 

He admits, “I screwed up. I know _that._ ”

Jenna spends a few more seconds studying him, and then her expression softens, a little. She nods a few times and then ducks back into the fridge to retrieve her own can of sparkling water, and then she—plants both hands behind her on the counter, and boosts herself up so that she’s sitting on it, her legs dangling.

It makes her look young. She _is_ young, Theo reminds himself; she’d had Liam in her early twenties. He looks back at her as she looks at him.

“Liam’s biological father—” not _dad,_ some clinical part of Theo notes, “—and I were high school sweethearts, very cliche,” she tells him, and Theo blanches as he realizes what’s happening.

“Mrs. Gey—Jenna,” he corrects, midway through because Jenna starts glaring at him. “You don’t have to tell me this.”

“I know I don’t,” Jenna assures him, a little pointedly. And then she sucks in a huge breath, and blows it out in a long, even stream. Her eyes are a little distant as she stares out the kitchen window. “We lost track of each other for a while during college, but then the summer before my junior year we ran into each other back in our hometown, and. Well.” 

She shrugs. Her eyes drop from the window to her feet, which she kicks a little against the cabinets below. Her fingers are white-knuckled around the edge of the counter.

“When everything first started happening,” she continues, her voice quiet, “it didn’t seem real. I’d known him half my _life,_ there was no way he could—” She cuts herself off. She sighs, heavily. “I had a whole roll of excuses that I gave. It was an accident. He was upset. I _had_ done something wrong, or stupid, to cause him to—”

She falters. Her eyes squeeze shut, and Theo can scent the sudden sting of salt in the air. He’s halfway through a step towards her when he forces himself to grind to a halt, still unsure of his welcome. She brings a hand up and presses the back of her wrist to her mouth and then underneath each of her eyes.

“It took me _way too long_ to finally admit what was happening,” she says, and Theo can hear the self-beratement layered _thick_ in her voice. But when he goes to open his mouth—about to protest, or _something_ —she holds up a hand, stopping him. “It wasn’t until. _Until_ …”

Theo feels his breath freeze in his chest, because he _knows_ where this is going, suddenly. “Jenna,” he tries, but she talks over him. 

“He always _swore_ to me that he’d never put a hand on Liam. By the time I realized he’d been _lying…_ ” She trails off. She looks shrewdly at him once again, and Theo preemptively flinches, because: “Well, _you_ know, now. You saw Liam’s file.”

Theo had, and he wishes like hell that he _hadn’t_. He’s infinitely grateful that he did. His chest is one big tangled mess of contradictions. All he can think to say is: “Jenna, I’m _sorry_.”

Jenna snorts a little, bitter-sounding. “So am I,” she agrees. She looks back out the kitchen window. She doesn’t specify which part she’s sorry for, anymore than Theo had.

There’s a few uncomfortable minutes of silence. Jenna is obviously caught up in her thoughts, and Theo has absolutely _no_ idea what to do with his current situation, though he gets the sense that—the conversation isn’t over. He certainly hasn’t been _dismissed,_ anyway. He ends up distracting himself with his can of sparkling water, turning it this way and that in absent circles while he orders himself, over and over again, not to open his mouth. To do _nothing,_ instead of something that’d probably make the situation worse, which is how he’d gotten himself in this mess.

“You know,” Jenna finally speaks up, and Theo nearly spills his can when he startles. By the time he’s rescued it from tipping over and glanced back up at her, Jenna is back to studying him. She says, “I’m actually surprised you didn’t already know all this.”

Theo flinches. He considers his answer, how to explain, but—there’s no way to mold the truth to make it sound like anything other than what it is. And besides, he—thinks he might owe her the unvarnished version.

He confesses, “I didn’t—think Liam was as important, back then,” the words burning like _acid_ in his throat. “I did some basic digging, but.” He stops, and forces himself to look back at her. “People get divorced all the time, and he plays _lacrosse._ There wasn’t anything in his files, or—” he hesitates, but: “—yours, about—any of this.”

“There wouldn’t be,” Jenna answers simply. “The police records and the restraining order are under my maiden name.”

“Not to mention,” Theo adds, the attempted humor reflexive, out of his control; stupid, really, “Plumas County only recently finished digitizing their files. It would have been a lot of work to go break into their file room when—”

“—you didn’t think Liam was as important, back then?” Jenna fills in dryly. Theo grimaces, and then manages to turn it into a pained, acknowledging smile.

Jenna gives him an equally small, tight smile right back. Theo realizes _what_ precisely they’re joking about, and can’t help flinching.

“God, this has to be weird for you,” falls out of his mouth before he can stop it. Jenna’s brow furrows, and he’s already _dug_ this hole: might as well throw himself in it. “Talking about what I did to Scott and the others. To your—” he falters, then swallows, and forces himself to finish, “—son.” The spying, the manipulation. _The attempted murder,_ he thinks, but doesn’t say.

He looks down at shoes.

But Jenna just shrugs—Theo can see the rise and fall of her shoulders in his peripheral vision—and answers, “Yeah, well. In this town, weird is kind of relative.”

Theo’s head snaps up, and he stares at her. Her lips flicker in another of those tiny, shaky smiles. And then she sighs again, heavy and with her shoulders slumping, as she looks down at her kicking feet and her fingers wrap _tight_ around the edge of the counter.

“Besides,” she adds, “I think if _anyone_ knows what it’s like to be in an—” she falters, then rallies: “—an abusive relationship, it’s probably you.”

She looks up. She gives him a sympathetic smile. Theo feels his expression scrunch up with his confusion, and then clear in surprise.

“Do you mean the _Doctors?_ ” He asks.

Jenna gives an exaggerated wince. “Don’t let Liam hear you calling them the Doctors without the Dread,” she warns, and this time it’s _her_ trying to give _him_ the joke.

But Theo can’t accept it. He shakes head. “It’s not the same. Liam’s father was your _family._ You trusted him. You should have been _able_ to trust him. The Doctors—” he doesn’t manage to remember the _Dread,_ and he can see _Jenna’s_ mouth tighten unhappily, “—were. They were…” He trails off. 

He doesn’t know _what_ they were.

“And anyway,” he concludes, jumping tracks. “Even if. Even if the relationship _was—_ ” He can’t say it. He switches tacks. “Even if you and I _had_ been in similar situations, you—were brave,” he tells her, and _means it._ He looks up at her, trying to ensure she _sees that._ “You got you and Liam out.”

He looks away from her. He feels a brief, all-consuming rush of _self-loathing_ wash over him.

“Me, I just—gave up,” he tells her quietly. He forces himself to meet her eyes again, and says, “I gave in.”

Jenna doesn’t say anything right away, just flicks her eyes back and forth between both of his, studying him. Her mouth is turned down in a slight moue.

“You were very young,” she reminds him. She sounds like _Liam._ Theo closes his eyes.

He counters, “Not always. Not—at the end.”

She looks like she wants to keep arguing with him. It’s possible she’s overheard him and _Liam_ having this argument before; they’d certainly had it enough times. Theo braces himself to hear the same points, and finds himself automatically preparing his same counter-points.

But instead Jenna just says, “I don’t think it’s that simple. And,” she adds, ducking her head to follow his when he drops his gaze, “I don’t think _Liam_ thinks it’s that simple.”

 _He doesn’t,_ Theo finds himself thinking. He grimaces and looks away instead of admitting that.

Jenna sighs, and suddenly hops down from the counter. When Theo jerks and glances up at her she’s holding out one hand. “C’mere,” she orders softly. “Give me your phone.” 

Theo squints at her in confusion for a few seconds, but he’s not—going to deny her. He slides his phone free from his pocket as he walks hesitantly over, and hands it to her unlocked. She gives him a flicker of a smile, and then spends a few seconds tapping around, and then typing something into whatever app she pulls up. 

She hands his phone back.

Theo frowns down at the little blue pin set in the map now dominating his screen. “What’s this?” He wonders, glancing up at her.

“It’s where you’ll find him,” she answers, and smiles sadly at him when his mouth drops open in surprise. She brings both of her hands up to hold either side of his face, and tips it downwards—Theo _instantly_ giving in to the pressure—so that she can press a kiss to his forehead. “I love my son. And so,” she says, “do _you._ ”

She pulls back slightly so that she can look at him directly in the eye as she adds:

“ _I_ know _that._ ” 

She’s referring back to his earlier claim. _It’s the only way I know how to help. Knowing things._ _Doing something_ with _what I know._ Theo doesn’t know what to say. He just keeps staring at her, his expression raw-feeling.

Jenna just strokes her thumbs across his cheeks. “He does, too,” she promises him, and then she tips her head just slightly sideways. “But given everything that’s happened, he could probably use the reminder.”

She drops her hands from his face to his shoulders, and gives them a little squeeze before pushing him gently backwards.

“Go find him,” she instructs him. 

Theo’s phone had gone dark with inaction, and locked itself. It lights up when he raises it, and the address Jenna had entered into his phone is still displayed on screen when he unlocks it. He looks back up at her.

“Thanks,” he tells her quietly.

She grins, and it’s a little less shaky this time. “I’d prepare myself to grovel, if I were you,” she warns.

Theo just dredges up a shaky grin of his own. “Happily,” he croaks, and _means it,_ and then he turns around, and goes to do as instructed.

He goes to find Liam.

\---

Liam is less than pleased to see him. If looks could kill Theo would be a smoking crater, right in the middle of the doorway into the coffee shop that Jenna’s address had led him to. Theo flinches.

But there’s a couple waiting in increasing confusion behind him, so he finishes pushing through the door, and then holds it open with an absent, “Of course, you’re welcome,” when they thank him. When he turns back around to face Liam in his chosen booth, Liam has slumped back with his arms crossed, his eyes fixed mutinously on the opposite side of the booth. Theo is hesitant on his approach.

Liam turns his head just _barely_ sideways to glare at him. “Did you track me here?” He demands.

Theo considers. “I tried to,” he admits, wanting to give Liam that truth. “But no.”

Liam’s brow furrows. “Then how…?”

“Your mom,” Theo answers quietly.

Liam’s eyes widen, and then he scowls, “Et tu, mother?” But then he sighs, and slumps a little out of his rigid position. “Jesus,” he mutters.

Theo’s still standing awkwardly at the edge of Liam’s booth. A few seconds tick by as he waits, but Liam doesn’t say anything else, so finally he offers, “Tell me to leave and I will.”

Liam finally deigns to glance at him. “Oh, _now_ you’re going to respect personal boundaries?” He retorts severely. 

Theo _flinches._ He opens and closes his mouth a few times, and then he nods quickly a few times and turns to leave.

He doesn’t get far. “Jesus christ, just—just _sit down,_ ” Liam orders, and doesn’t so much as give him a choice in the matter as practically _throws_ him towards the other booth seat using the hand he’d gripped in Theo’s sleeve. Theo spends an awkward second recovering his balance, and then does as instructed.

He keeps his eyes on Liam’s drink sitting atop a cheerful little plate, though; it’d probably been steaming at one point but now it’s started to congeal a bit at the edges as it cools. No matter how fiercely Theo yells at himself to, he can’t force himself to look up at Liam.

Liam just sighs again, and when he shifts in his seat his feet and shins bump into Theo’s under the table. He moves them, but not right away, and not far. Theo chances a glance upwards.

But Liam isn’t looking at him. He’s looking around the shop. “This used to be a bookstore, you know,” he murmurs, nostalgia thick enough in his voice that _Theo_ aches a little. “Independent. Owned by this older couple, nicest people in the world.”

He hesitates, and Theo finds himself holding his breath.

“I used to come here when. When _he…_ ” He doesn’t finish.

Theo winces. “Liam,” he tries.

“Shut up,” Liam immediately orders, his tone once more severe. “You wanted to know, didn’t you?”

And Theo had _earned_ that rebuke, so he takes it. He shuts up. Liam spends a few more seconds eyeing him, and then he blows out a sharp breath through his nose, and looks around again. 

“They’d let me stay as long as I wanted. _Hours_ past closing, sometimes. I’d hide in some corner with a book while they loudly talked about how they had to take inventory, or update their accounts, or whatever. I didn’t figure out that they were doing it on purpose for…a while.” He exhales out a low, rough breath. “I never did get to thank them.”

Theo’s brow furrows. “Why not?”

“Because when I figured out they knew, I stopped coming,” Liam says flatly. He doesn’t look away from Theo, just keeps staring right at him. Theo forces himself to do the same. Liam studies him, flicking his eyes back and forth between Theo’s own, and then he shakes his head a little and finally turns briefly away as he demands, “Why didn’t you just _ask_ me? I would have told you.”

Theo winces and hunkers down. He has both hands clutched between his knees underneath the table, and he works them now, the movements automatic and helpless. “I don’t know,” he admits, his eyes dropping away from Liam’s to skip nervously over the little jar of sugar and the ceramic box of artificial sweeteners next to it and the other random table decorations. “Old habits die hard, I guess.”

He flicks his gaze back to Liam’s just in time to catch it as Liam scowls.

“That’s _not an answer,_ ” he denies fiercely. 

Theo _flinches_ this time, full and bodily. He stares at Liam’s drink because he can’t bring himself to look up at Liam directly. Part of the problem, he thinks, is that he’s spent the last several days—and sleepless nights—asking himself variations on Liam’s same question, and he’s _still_ not sure he has an answer.

But that might _be_ his answer. He probably owes it to Liam to try and explain, anyway.

He brings his hands up so that he’s not hiding them under the table anymore, and uses them to cover his face. He scrubs his palms roughly over his cheeks, and then threads them back through his hair, and _clutches._ He leaves them there, his scalp aching a bit with the pressure, and bites his lip.

Finally he says, “At first I was just so freaked out. I was at the station,” he clarifies, chancing a glance up at Liam. His expression is hard; he’d clearly known, or realized, or been told that. Theo winces and looks back down. “The call came in, and it was _your_ address, and a ten-sixteen is—”

“Domestic disturbance,” Liam fills in neutrally. Theo squeezes his eyes shut.

“It didn’t make any _sense,_ ” Theo whispers. “I knew it couldn’t be you or David or Jenna, so I just didn’t know… I had no idea _who…_ ” Theo tries to explain. “And then the Sheriff told me to leave it alone and—”

“You’re blaming _him?_ ” Liam interrupts incredulously. 

“ _No,_ ” Theo disagrees, fierce and immediately. He meets Liam’s eyes so that Liam can see he _means it_ when he repeats, “No. Never. This was one-hundred percent on me. I _know that,_ Liam. I swear.”

Liam works his jaw again, but he doesn’t argue. He tilts his head a little and raises his eyebrows, a clear: _well?_ Theo swallows, and lets his eyes slip shut again.

“I just had to make sure you were okay,” Theo tells the cold, filmy surface of Liam’s drink. “You _and_ Jenna and David. I just had to _know._ ”

Liam _tsks._ “I knew I smelled you at the house.”

Theo doesn’t try to deny it. What he _does_ try to get Liam to understand: “I was going to go _home,_ Liam,” he insists, meeting Liam’s eyes again. “I was. I was going to go home, and wait for you to call me, or text me. Tell me what happened. Tell me if—” _you needed me,_ Theo thinks, but doesn’t say.

Liam doesn’t say anything, just looks stonily back at him. Theo drops his eyes again. His fingers are still in his hair and they _spasm,_ pulling at the strands and causing his scalp to twinge.

“But then you didn’t,” Theo continues quietly, _knowing_ how it sounds. Petulant, childish: like _Theo_ had been the wronged one. “Not for that first hour, anyway,” Theo murmurs, a further acknowledgement of the weakness of his own case.

Liam still hasn’t said anything and he probably _won’t:_ he’d learned, somewhere along the line, that the best way to win an argument with Theo was just to let Theo have it with _himself._

That Theo would lose every time he did.

Theo gives up, and tells him, “I went to the hospital. I found your room, and—”

“—spied on me, and my family,” Liam interjects flatly.

“—I heard you tell your mom that you’d call Mason,” Theo continues doggedly, because he’s got to get this out or he’s afraid that Liam’s never going to stop looking at him like he is: like Theo had disappointed him in some fundamental way.

Like Theo had _failed_ him.

“—and not me,” Theo finally concludes. _God,_ it sounds so much worse when he has to lay it cleanly like this, bare of all of his self-serving excuses. He squints an eye shut in a preemptive wince and looks up at Liam. 

“And you thought that’d meant I was _never_ going to call you,” Liam interprets, cutting _right_ through to the heart of the matter. Right to the _bone._ “You thought that’d meant that I was never _going_ to tell you.”

Theo flinches, but. Liam snorts, a bitterly amused sound. He shakes his head again, his eyes drifting over the coffee shop, the other gathered patrons; the street beyond the windows.

“You didn’t trust me,” he concludes.

“Liam,” Theo immediately protests, helpless.

“Oh?” Liam snaps back, his gaze jerking back to Theo’s own and _burning._ “There’s an _alternate_ explanation for why you _stole my medical record?_ ”

There’s really nothing Theo can say in his own defense. He still tries, “Liam, I—”

“ _You,_ ” Liam interrupts pointedly, “thought I was never going to tell you, but you couldn’t stand not knowing. Tell me I’m wrong, Theo.”

Theo can’t do that, because Liam isn’t. He looks away. He touches his tongue to his bottom lip. It feels approximately like his chest is trying to shear itself in two. 

“I thought if I could just…learn the reason, then even if I had to spend the rest of my life pretending I _didn’t_ know—even if you _had_ never told me—I could still. I could still _help,_ however—however I could help,” Theo tries to explain. It’s a shitty explanation and it excuses _less_ than nothing, but.

But it is the truth. 

He winces. His eyes squeeze preemptively shut as he waits for Liam to scoff, to scowl; to reject his reasoning and—in his absolute _worst_ nightmares potentially come to light—to potentially reject _him._ He tries to start figuring out what he’ll do if Liam does. 

Except that Liam doesn’t scoff, or scowl, or reject _anything._ Instead Theo’s eyes snap back open as he hears a dull _thunk,_ and he sees that Liam had dropped his head back against the wooden booth back, the corners of his eyes and mouth and his entire _body_ heavy. He tips his head sideways so that he’s staring once more out of the windows, though Theo doubts he’s seeing anything he’s looking at. _That’s the side of his jaw he got hit on,_ Theo realizes with a jolt. There’s no sign of it, of course, but. 

But. 

He jerks, broken out of his morbid staring when Liam says, “I know.” Theo’s mouth drops open. He _stares._ Liam rolls his head forward so that he’s looking at Theo again, his eyes hooded. “I know,” he says again. “I knew it the second that I stopped being furious enough to actually think about it.”

“Liam,” Theo breathes, but Liam just shakes his head lightly and lets his head roll sideways again. Still, he brings up one of his feet and braces it against the booth edge right by Theo’s thigh, so that his ankle is pressed right up against Theo’s leg. Theo _immediately_ drops a hand to wrap his fingers around it, no thought necessary. He smooths his thumb over the jut of Liam’s ankle bone, back and forth.

Finally Liam exhales roughly out. He shifts upwards in the booth but doesn’t take his foot away from Theo, just wiggles around enough that he can free his phone from his pocket, and bring it up to his face. He spends a few seconds tapping something in, and then he sets it on the table between them and spins it around so it’s facing Theo. He uses the back of his knuckles to push it forward.

Theo hesitates, and then he picks it up, and looks down at the screen. He _flinches._

 _Causes of Intermittent Explosive Disorder, or I.E.D.,_ the black-and-white text reads. Theo sets Liam’s phone back down before he can read more than the first line or two on instinct. 

He admits, very carefully: “I know.”

Liam just watches him, expression unreadable. Finally he says, “I know you know. But now you _know._ ”

Theo looks down. Liam’s phone had locked. He pushes it back towards Liam with his own knuckles, and then spends a few seconds looking everywhere _but_ at Liam as he tries to figure out what to say next, or if he even _should_ say something. But when next he glances up, Liam is back to looking out the windows, and it puts the right side of his jaw on display again.

Theo can’t hold it back anymore. “You’re fine, right?” Liam gives him a sharp look, clearly confused. Theo winces and brings up his free hand—his other still anchored firmly around Liam’s ankle—to gesture his fingers next to his own jaw. “This, I mean.”

Liam studies him for a few seconds, and then snorts. “Don’t worry. Old man still can’t hit worth a damn. I mean even before all this—” he waves a hand around his face, and just _briefly_ flares his eyes, “— _I_ could hit harder than—”

He cuts himself off on a sudden sharp, inhaled breath. There’s a ton of natural light pouring in through the windows, but even still for a second Liam looks washed-out, pale. Theo’s fingers _spasm_ tighter around Liam’s ankle, and that seems to knock him out of it. His head thumps back against the back of the booth again.

“Liam, I haven’t said it, but I’m _sorry._ ” Theo feels his expression screw up. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” Liam just repeats. He tips his head back forward so he’s looking at Theo again. “I know that in your own fucked-up way, you were actually trying to give me what you thought I wanted. Just…in a way that _you_ could live with.” Liam gives him an unexpected flicker of a smile. “ _I_ know _that._ ” He pauses, and his eyes narrow a little on Theo’s face. “I know _you._ ” 

_I_ trust _you,_ he doesn’t say, but he doesn’t _need_ to: Theo hears it anyway. He winces. He looks away.

His fingers tighten around Liam’s ankle. 

“Hey,” Liam calls softly, and bumps Theo’s thigh with his captive ankle. Theo jolts and instantly looks back up at him. “I love you,” he tells Theo, and Theo feels his expression twist up, but Liam isn’t done. “But for this thing to work—” Theo feels his breath freeze in his chest, “—you have to _trust me,_ okay? You have to _trust_ me.”

“Liam,” Theo tries to insist, lurching forward over the table with the sudden need to be closer, to make Liam _understand._ “Liam, I _do_. I _do_ tru—”

Liam had moved, too; moved so that he could lean far enough forward over the table to slide a hand into Theo’s hair, and tighten it. Not _painfully,_ just to the point of getting Theo’s attention. The point of Theo’s jaw snapping shut. 

“You don’t,” Liam disagrees quietly, and tightens his fingers in warning when Theo goes to speak. “Not entirely. Not _yet,_ ” he adds, and Theo—whose eyes had dropped, helplessly, _despair_ flooding into his ribs to drown out all his organs—looks startled back up, because Liam’s _voice_ gentles, and he starts to stroke a careful thumb underneath Theo’s eye. “But we’ll get there. I still think we’re going to get there.”

Theo starts nodding frantically, can’t stop himself. Liam’s expression softens and his lips curl up in a seemingly helpless smile. He uses the grip he has on Theo’s hair to guide his head forward so that he can press his mouth to Theo’s own.

Theo practically _collapses_ into the kiss, _relief_ pouring through him. Liam’s fingers tighten in his hair for no other reason than to literally hold him up.

Liam kisses him deep and lingering and _thoroughly,_ but they are still in public. Eventually he leans back, his eyes slowly opening—Theo seeing it because his are doing the same—and he carefully pushes Theo back, releasing his hair. Theo goes, but reluctantly. He looks hesitantly at Liam once he’s slumped back against his seat, still feeling somehow tender; bruised. He’d come here to apologize but instead he’d been vivisected and forgiven, though not necessarily in that order. He doesn’t know what to do with himself.

Luckily Liam doesn’t make him figure it out. He reaches deliberately forward for his cup and tips it towards himself and then makes a face when he sees the cold, congealed mess inside.

“Well, this has become undrinkable,” he declares. He lets the cup tip back flat on the coaster with a _clack_ and a secret little smile. But then it falls off his face as he hesitates, and then touches his tongue to his bottom lip, before he finally pushes his cup and its coaster a little closer to Theo as he says, “Why don’t you go get us two _new_ drinks, and then come back here, and—ask me.” 

He looks straight at Theo and repeats: 

“This time, _ask me._ ”

“Liam,” Theo manages, his expression stricken. 

Liam just gives him a lopsided grin, and then tips his head towards the counter in a silent order. Theo hesitates a second longer, and then hurries out of the booth to go comply. 

But just a few steps away from the booth, he has to stop, and pivot back around, and return to Liam. He has to bend over him, and press his mouth to Liam’s in a kiss that’s just _shy_ of desperate.

“I love you,” Theo promises him, all in a breathless rush. “I know it doesn’t excuse—” _what I did._ “I know it’s not a _substitute_ for—” _trusting you._ He looks desperately into Liam’s eyes as he repeats, “But I love you.”

Liam just brings his hands up to cup Theo’s face, and then leans forward to kiss him, quick and close-mouthed but _firm._

“I know,” he says, a promise given in return. “That’s why we’ll get to the rest.” He pushes Theo’s face lightly away, his mouth curling up in a soft smile. “Now _go._ And get me—!” 

“Mocha, two shots of espresso,” Theo fills in, his own lips flickering as he backs up, heading towards the counter. _I know_ that, _at least,_ he thinks, and then he turns around so that he can finish heading towards the counter. They’d get to the rest.

But before they do:

“Hey,” Liam calls absently when Theo steps through the front door of the Geyer-Dunbar house a few days later. From the looks of him as Theo’s heeling off his shoes and kicking them onto the mat by the door, he’s doing homework at the island in the kitchen. Theo makes his way over.

He’d been right: Liam is frowning down at his pre-calc textbook on his left-hand side, a spiral notebook full of scribbled equations on the other. Theo studies the equations for a second—he can see a handful of mistakes that he’ll correct later, if Liam’s in the mood for the help—and then he slips into the seat next to Liam. He hesitates for a second, and then he retrieves a folded slip of paper from his pocket, and holds it out.

Liam studies him for a second, his head twisted sideways and the eraser of his pencil in his mouth. He sets it down, finally, and accepts the paper. “What’s this?”

“The couple who owned the bookstore,” Theo starts to quietly explain. Liam freezes partway through unfolding the paper, and _stares_ at him. Theo swallows. “They retired. That’s why they sold it. But they opened up another in a little mountain town. Bear Lake.”

Theo hesitates a little, his face tilted slightly down so that he’s looking up at Liam from underneath a ducked brow. Liam still hasn’t finished unfolding the paper so Theo nods at it.

“From the pictures online it’s a total tourist trap kind of affair. Kitschy souvenirs for purchase along with the books, but.” His lips flicker. “It gets rave reviews.”

Liam stares at him for a few seconds longer, and then he blinks and looks back down at the paper. He finishes unfolding it, and then stares down at the address written on it instead.

“I just thought…” Theo starts, then trails off. Thinking has been getting him in trouble a _lot_ , lately. He wonders if this is going to backfire, too.

And for a second he thinks that’s exactly what’s happened. Liam very carefully folds up the paper again, along each of the same creases that Theo had originally used, and then he taps it once, twice, against the island before setting it down flat. Theo winces, and looks away.

But then he has to look back, because Liam prods him lightly in the arm.

He says, “Bear Lake’s kind of far. It’d probably need to be a weekend trip.” 

His head tilts. Theo’s breath catches in his chest because there’s a small, _warm_ smile breaking over Liam’s face.

He says, “I could use a copilot.”

Theo stares back at him. After a few seconds—and after Liam’s titled his head a little further in curious question—he finally remembers to nod, small and jerky at first and then faster. “Yeah, yes,” he breathes. “ _Please,_ ” he can’t help but add.

He’s still nodding. Liam laughs a little, not unkindly, and catches his head to make him stop. He leans forward and kisses him. 

His lips flicker when he pulls back. He turns back to his homework.

“So, what,” he demands, once he has. “Are we going to pretend like you _weren’t_ hovering over my shoulder five minutes ago practically _yearning_ to correct my math?”

Theo’s answering before he can stop himself. “You can’t cancel parts of sums, you have to—” 

He cuts himself off. He gives Liam a dry look when Liam grins over at him. 

“C’mon,” Liam tells him, offering over his pencil. “Help me figure this thing out.”

He’s not talking about his homework, not really. Theo hesitates, and then reaches out and takes the pencil. He scoots his chair a little closer to Liam’s, and starts to explain. 

He helps Liam figure it out. At one point Liam rests his chin on Theo’s shoulder as Theo explains, and that—that feels like figuring something out, too. 

**Author's Note:**

> All feedback loved! If you liked, please consider a comment or a [reblog](https://eneiryu.tumblr.com/post/635520161008467968/right-at-the-intersection-right-at-the-right-time)!


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